On October 14, 2021, Senior Pastor Vladimir Yakushov of Kem Lutheran Church in Rabocheostrovsk, Karelia, attended a meeting of the Advisory Council for the Implementation of Ethnic Policy and Development of the State & Religion Relationship under the Administration of Kemsky Municipal District.
As we were approaching October 30, Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions, Rev. Yakushov proposed building a memorial on the White Sea Coast in Rabocheostrovsk on the site from which barges with gulag prisoners departed for the Solovki Prison Camp during the Great Purge of the 1930’s. The council members made a decision to give the proposal a public hearing.